It's tragic that so many of my fellow British Muslims are turning their backs on freedom writes YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN

A few weeks ago, I published a book in which I argued that Muslim women should not be forced to wear the veil because it represents too often their subjugation by men.

When I arrived in this country from Uganda in the Seventies, British Muslim women did not wear headscarves or cover their faces. But it has been revived as a practice, partly thanks to the exporting of hardline Islam from Saudi Arabia around the world.

(Last week in Saudi, a young Muslim man, Raif Badawi, who set up a free speech website, was flogged 50 times. He now awaits 950 more lashes and nine years in jail.)

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Raif Badawi, who co-founded the Free Saudi Liberals website, was arrested in 2012 and sentenced to 1,000 lashes and a decade in prison for insulting Islam on his online forum has received his first 50 lashes

A whip, a leather strap or a long cane may be used to carry out floggings in Saudi Arabia (pictured)

Recently, some Muslim female acquaintances invited me to a small gathering to discuss my book. These were reasonable, educated women, but their reaction to what I had written was staggering.

‘Why did you have to write this, who gave you permission?’ one asked me.

‘Even to think these thoughts is wrong, yet you go and publish them,’ said another. ‘If you were in a Muslim country you would be in jail.’

‘If your mother was alive, she would have slapped you for writing this,’ said a third.

When I replied that my mother, a devout Shia Muslim follower of a liberal sect, refused the veil when she was 22, the woman retorted: ‘Then I feel sorry for you. She was the sinner and she made you one, too.

‘If you are a Muslim, you follow Islamic rules without question. Are you even a Muslim?’

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In the eyes of such women, the fact I am married to an Englishman only makes me more suspect and sinful.

Only two of the 14 women defended my right to write the book. But those two admitted they could never challenge Islamic practices so openly. To many such believers, my mind is too free.

It is a relief to learn that not all Muslims think like this. I have had warm responses, too, but not publicly. Muslim women who agree with me are too scared to speak up in the present climate.

For something profoundly disturbing is happening to the Islamic faith in Britain and beyond. At its most extreme, this lurch into conservatism led to the terrorist atrocities in France last week, where three young men who were raised in a free society chose to attack the principle of free speech that underpins it, in the name of Islam.

Mayor of Rotterdam Ahmed Aboutaleb, pictured, warned Muslims if they do not like the West they can leave

While the vast majority of Muslims in Britain would never dream of resorting to violence, too many of them have become inward-looking and closed off, even as the world becomes more open and connected than ever before in history.

Our Prophet said: ‘God has not created anything better than reason, anything more perfect than reason.’ Yet what do we see? Reason overtaken by killing rage, and the crushing of the most fundamental human desire: to be free.

This retreat from light to darkness for many Muslims is a modern development, and a disturbing one.

I love my faith and fear for its future, and for the minds of its millions of followers.

I ceaselessly fight against racial and religious discrimination, as well as Western foreign policies that cause so much damage in the Middle East.

But I am also grateful that I live in a place where I can speak freely, vote in fair elections and make the most of the opportunities life has to offer.

Surely other Muslims in the West should feel the same way?

The mayor of Rotterdam, a Muslim from a Moroccan background, reflected the frustration of integrated Muslims when he said on Tuesday that those who follow Islam and do not appreciate the ‘freedoms’ of the West should: ‘Pack your bags and f*** off home.’

Unelected Muslim leaders in this country condemn terrorism well enough, but I do not hear them saying loud and clear what the mayor is saying: that we have all inherited precious freedoms that must not be taken away by men of violence or spiritual leaders who hold no truck with a liberal way of life.

Countless Muslims living in Islamic states around the world would love to have the life we western Muslims have. In Pakistan, Afghanistan, most central Asian states, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Libya, even ‘liberated’ Iraq, people know they must not say what they privately think about their rulers or their imams — not even to neighbours or friends.

In the 1970s Muslim women in Britain did not cover their faces, it is a practice from Saudi Arabia, file pic

The only choice is to conform, and keep your boiling thoughts locked in your own head.

When, in 2010, the Arab Spring unexpectedly burst into life, Muslims rejoiced as they tasted freedom for the first time. I was in the Middle East in the most optimistic months, and there was an extraordinary mood of hope.

And yet, as we all know, spring turned to winter — and even harsher restrictions were imposed. Now, disappointed and frightened Muslims try to flee to Europe from North Africa and the Middle East every day, to get to places where they can earn a living, be safe and be themselves.

Those people on boats who turn up on Europe’s shores want what the three men who terrorised Paris last week had, before they blasted it all away: the chance to live in a free society.

The past has a lot to teach us Muslims. Between the 8th and 16th centuries, science and philosophy flourished across the Islamic world. The first English scientists paid homage to the Arab thinkers, to their evidence-based work and questioning minds. That was when we were civilised.

During centuries of Western colonialism, Muslim nations struggled against European rule; but though they were denied freedom of expression and democratic votes by the foreign rulers, they still wanted and valued those rights.

And when, one by one, those nations became independent, their elected leaders proclaimed freedom and democracy (even if, soon afterwards, most of them turned into repressive autocracies).

Even within families, humble people were passionate about political and personal freedom.

My mother’s generation, for example, would not let their daughters into the kitchen to help with the cooking before they had finished school: ‘You must free your mind. We were told to cook, clean, marry and have children. But we mothers want something different for our daughters — to become independent and educated.’

Loving liberalism went hand in hand with deep faith and a moral life.

If some Muslims like me want to embrace modern freedoms, we understand they come with heavy responsibilities.

Liberty to speak one’s mind, for example, should not be abused; public discourse is expected to be within bounds of decency and respect; and liberty to behave however we wish should not mean that we allow ourselves to sink into licentiousness and excess.

But without freedom and autonomy, humans become mental slaves.

On Muslim websites, adults ask bearded old men if it is acceptable for them to travel on buses, clap their hands or have birthday cakes for their children. Imams order mothers to cover the hair of young girls.

Every aspect of life becomes regulated, and freedom of thought and deed are slowly eroded into nothing.

White women who are converts tell me they are happier living within Islamic rules, when decisions are made for them.

Perhaps some Muslims find it too challenging to live with choice every day: to be able to make your own decisions about who to love and what to eat and drink, and how to dress.

Instead, they denounce free will as a sin. Conservative Muslims have no choices, and don’t want them.

The greatest danger in all this is that conservatism can tip into extremism. In the past year, we have read endless stories of young British Muslims, men and women, going to Syria to fight the jihad with Islamic State.

The problem is that moderate imams cannot control young hotheads who become radicalised, attracted to the ‘glamour’ of fighting abroad. And the British education system is not equipped to steer impressionable Muslim teenagers away from such a dangerous path.

What a tragedy that the faith that once was the envy of the world’s thinkers and philosophers is now more renowned for the violence it seeks to mete out to those it perceives as its enemies, simply because they dare to believe in liberty.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a columnist for The Independent.

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It's tragic that so many of my fellow British Muslims are turning their backs on freedom writes YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN